[78-L] Early portable electric recording?

[Michael Biel]

From: "Bud Black" <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
> Anybody ever hear of a wind-up tape recorder? In 1959 I was interviewed 
> by a gentleman of the press who used a small tape recorder in which the
> sound/record system was battery operated, but the drive capstan and the
> 7" reels were spring driven. I don't recall the manufacturer.

Sure.  It was called the Magnamite made by the Amplifier Corporation of
America, and one of the most famous users of this machine was Tony
Schwartz who recorded many of his Folkway's albums on one of these.  I
had a chance to inspect one of these in detail on a visit to Slovenia. 
Their folk archive had been given one back in the 50s by a benefactor in
the U.S. and the current curator was interested in finding more about
them.  My knowledge of the machine resulted in a nice visit to a country
I would otherwise not have been able to visit.  When I saw it I realized
that the capstan turned clockwise which resulted in the tape moving from
right-to-left.  And the reason the capstan turned clockwise is that the
motor was a PHONOGRAPH motor, and the capstan rotated at 78!

There are references on the web to two other spring wound tape machines,
Butoba and Maihak.  Ironically these are probably European, but the
machine used in Slovenia was American made.  


> Back around 1970, there were Aiwa battery-powered "mini-tape-recorders!"
> They were NOT "capstan-driven,? so that what you heard depended on the
> battery voltage...!   Steven C. Barr 

It also depended on the amount of tape on the take-up reel because these
rotated that reel at a constant speed which increased the tape speed as
it filled up.  This rim-drive type of machine had absolutely nothing to
do with the spring wound machines which bud asked about, which DID use a
capstan to control tape speed.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com